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Welcome to Minnesota Genealogy Trails

Welcome to this
Genealogy Trails

website for
Dakota County

 


Volunteers Dedicated to Free Genealogy
Our goal is to help you track your ancestors through time by transcribing genealogical and historical data and placing it online for the free use of all researchers.

This website is available for adoption.
We're looking for folks who share our dedication to putting data online and are interested in helping this project be as successful as we can make it. If you are interested in joining our group by hosting one of the available county websites, view our
Volunteer Page for further information about us and then contact Kim.
[A desire to transcribe data and knowledge of how to make a basic webpage is required.]


All information you find on this site is submitted by people like you and me, searching for their family roots. We welcome any information you may wish to provide for the free research of others. So, dust off those old scrapbooks you have in your attic, dig out those old newspapers, or anything else you feel is of interest to this County, and send them our way. We are looking for obituaries, newspaper stories, biographies, Birth, Death and Marriage records, as well as interesting tidbits from years gone past - the items YOU used to put together your family trees. If you have information that you'd like to share with us on the history of this county and its people, please
send it to us and we'll make sure it gets posted online.

 


County Information
Named for the Dakota Tribe


County Seat
Hastings


Government website

Townships

Cities

Castle Rock Township
Douglas Township
Empire Township
Eureka Township
Greenvale Township
Hampton Township
Marshan Township
Nininger Township
Randolph Township
Ravenna Township
Sciota Township
Vermillion Township
Waterford Township

Apple Valley
Burnsville
Coates
Eagan
Farmington
Hampton
Hastings (part)
Inver Grove Heights
Lakeville
Lilydale

Mendota
Mendota Heights
Miesville
New Trier
Northfield (part)
Randolph
Rosemount
South St. Paul
Sunfish Lake
Vermillion
West St. Paul

 

 

The County is 587 square miles in area, originally vegetated with oak prairie savannas. Dakota County lies within the confluence of three of the four major rivers draining from the State of Minnesota -- the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers along the northern border and the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers on the eastern border. The County's development and history have been greatly influenced by its proximity to these rivers.

Previous to European settlement, Dakota County was part of an expansive territory of the Dakota tribe of American Indians. In 1689, Nicholas Perrot, a fur trader, proclaimed possession of Dakota, Ojibwe (Chippewa), and other American Indian lands for the nation of France, without the consent of the tribes. Lands west of the Mississippi River were annexed from France to the United States in 1805 through the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1849, the Minnesota Territory legislature created nine original counties, including Dakota. The County's original boundary extended only as far south as Hastings, but extended west several hundred miles to the Missouri River. The County seat was first established in Kaposia in 1853, was moved to Mendota in 1854, and moved again to Hastings in 1857, where it currently resides. Mendota, directly across the river from Fort Snelling, became the first European settlement in Minnesota. As American Indians were systematically removed from their lands and rebellions moved further to the west, large numbers of European settlers began arriving to the region in the mid-1850s. With increased population, Minnesota became a state in May 1858, nine years after the inception of Dakota County.
Source: Dakota County Government.
Submitted by John Bauer


Online Data

BIRTHS

OBITS

MARRIAGES

CEMETERIES

CENSUS

BIOGRAPHIES

DEATHS

CHURCHES

NEWS & GOSSIP

HISTORY

MILITARY

 
Website updates:
May 2009: BERRY suicide
Nov 2008: County History; Township/City History; Civil War Enlistees, 1868 Hastings Business directory; WW II Casualties; Bio for CROWLEY

Adjacent Counties:
Ramsey County (north)
Washington County (northeast)
Goodhue County (southeast)
Rice County (southwest)
Scott County (west)
Hennepin County (northwest)

Pierce County, Wisconsin (east, across the Mississippi River)

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All data on this website is © Copyright 2009 by Genealogy Trails
with full rights reserved for original submitters.